Literary Cat Fight And An Open Letter to Jennifer Egan
Contrary to the certain prurient fantasies of most male NASCAR fans, there is nothing hot, sexy, attractive or entertaining about women fighting.
In the real world, women do not fight physically anyway unless you’ve got your hands on the sweet cinematographic morsel: Girls Gone Wild: The Compton Edition. No, in almost every situation, women fight in a subversive, treacherous fashion that leaves most males wondering if a conflict has even occurred.
Women fight in a place men will never go: below the belt, below the mud and blood, someplace deeper, uglier and more brutal.
I’ve been mulling over a certain conflict that’s been happening in the literary world for about a week. I was reluctant to join in the fray because it’s beneath me. I know where I stand and that was good enough. But yesterday I made a decision.
To get you up to speed.
Recently, an author by the name of Jennifer Egan won the Pulitzer Prize Award for fiction. I am in the midst of reading the winning book, A Visit from the Goon Squad, So far it is difficult to put down; or rather, it’s difficult to look away–like a car crash on the Interstate. It reads with a dazzling foreboding and tension that creates in the story a cohesive ball of energy. It spans generations and hops around in time and its completely compelling. I think the award is well-deserved and I am very happy for her.
During an interview (a good 20 minutes after she found out she won) Jennifer Egan spoke these words:
“My focus is less on the need for women to trumpet their own achievements than to shoot high and achieve a lot. What I want to see is young, ambitious writers. And there are tons of them. Look at The Tiger’s Wife. There was that scandal with the Harvard student who was found to have plagiarized. But she had plagiarized very derivative, banal stuff. This is your big first move? These are your models?…My advice for young female writers would be to shoot high and not cower.”
I found the advice to be good, solid advice.
But the cats began to hiss.
One particular cat, an author named Jennifer Weiner actually . . . tweeted:
”And there goes my chance to be happy that a lady won the big prize. Thanks, Jenny Egan. You’re a model of graciousness.”
Emphasis on “lady” was added by me. I was confused. Why the arched backs? Why the snub?
Ah, apparently the books to which Egan had referred to as banal and derivative were none other than the darlings of the “Chick Lit” crowd: Meg Cabot (The Princess Diaries), Sophie Kinsella (Confessions of a Shopaholic) and Megan McCafferty (the Jessica Darling series). It all began to make sense.
Weiner, an outspoken advocate of her genre took special care to sharpen her claws and attack in every venue that would listen to her hiss. She didn’t just go after Egan; she also went after Jonathan Franzen, author of the novel Freedom, sardonically calling him Jonathon “genius” Franzen in an interview.
Apparently this is a gender issue.
Women everywhere are boycotting Egan’s work. They have accused her of perpetrating “girl-on-girl crime,” that she has set back feminism 50 years. Let me repeat, THEY are saying SHE has set back feminism 50 years. Because “chick lit” is so….so….womyn! Yeah, no stereotypes found in chicklit. Nope. And for God’s sake, they’re calling Egan mean!
Can you see my cyber eye-roll from here?
This is not a gender issue. When Eleanor Roosevelt stated that “there is a special place in Hell for women who do not help other women” she wasn’t referring to blind support of anything and everything done by a woman. You are not going to hell if you didn’t vote for Hillary. So yesterday, I read a bunch more….meeeooooorrrrrwwwwww-ing about Ms. Egan, and a subsequent interview she gave where she thoroughly apologized for her comment, and I got tweaked. Peeved. P-i-s-s-e-d.
So here is my letter to Jennifer Egan in the hopes she doesn’t feel all alone out there in the seventh grade cafeteria while the other girls talk behind her back and roll their eyes at her:
Dear Ms. Egan,
I know you are probably inundated by now with all types of intrusions, but I hope you read what I have to say–and I thank you for your time in advance.
First, allow me to congratulate you on your recent and deserved Pulitzer Prize for fiction. I have Goon Squad on my Kindle and it’s up next to read. I look forward to it and don’t worry, I haven’t placed laurels around it so as to doom it’s significance or value. A Pulitzer is a bitch to live up to, I can only imagine.
My name is JulieAnn and I’m also a published author of fiction, but I eschew the”chick lit” label vehemently. I wanted you to know that although you recently apologized for your remarks about the banality and derivative nature of chick lit, I don’t think you have anything for which you need to apologize.
I believe that we are beset by an old school standard (the standard being the white, middle-aged male author who writes literary fiction) and your award gives those of us who aspire to be read great hope. Writers, whatever their gender, need to aim high. I don’t believe this is a gender issue; I think you touched on the real issue, which is literary fiction vs. commercial fiction.
Jennifer Weiner and the like are kicking and screaming and “protesting too much.” If one’s writing is not banal and derivative, then why the soft skin? If someone called my writing banal et. al., I would assert that they a) haven’t read me, or b) didn’t “get” me. Period.
I am truly sorry for the ridiculous backlash your comment has incurred. The fact that these women have their panties in such a bunch is further proof to males of the world as well as sane, professional and mature women writers that the chick lit crowd and their work is still firmly and immutably entrenched in the 9th grade. I mean, she TWEETED for God’s sake?
I just wanted you to know that your original comment was a cause de celebre for me and many others, who would just as soon see the chick lit moniker fall off the face of the Earth. These women are literally shooting themselves and other female writers in the foot by allowing such a derogatory label to be placed on their work. However, I’m not sure what else to call their books other than a prolonged, exhaustive Hallmark card.
Anyway, I felt moved to write you after following the blog circuits and watching the cat fight going on between women bloggers and writers. I know that every word you say can be twisted and construed into awful things once you become a public figure, but the less vocal of us, the one’s who stay out of the fracas because it’s beneath us, concur with your original statement. I personally feel that we, as writers, not women, need to stick together and promote quality and art, not bubble gum mind-candy for the intellectually lazy.
I wish you gobs of success and luck and (here is my Shameless Self Promotion portion because, well, I’m a writer), if you ever want a new read and you have a Nook or Kindle, my books are available and I hear from my grandmother, best friend and butcher that they are very, very good.
All my best,
JulieAnn
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I’ll let you know if I hear back. I doubt it, but I’ve said my piece.
